Biting

Sofi's been biting while nursing for the past few weeks. Our attempts to "punish" the behavior - stop nursing for a while - have been ineffective. Enough's enough: time to wean her.
Since Sofi used to snack on and off all day, this is kind of tough. What we're trying today is everytime she asks for milk (the one sign she knows, and to her it doesn't mean milk-from-a-bottle, it means mommy milk - shame that the one thing she knows how to ask us is going to always be met with denial) we give her food instead. So far, it's been going great, and she's been willing to accept the surrogate. Of course, it's only noon.

Learned to dance before I could walk.

Just like the Abba song!

Well, actually, seems like she's learned both more or less at the same time - she was bouncing to the Black Eyed peas (she has rhythm, I swear!) and from there realized she could take little mincing sidesteps...and then some tiny real steps.

We have steps.

Sleep

I expected I'd be getting full nights of sleep by now. Now that it's been more than a year. But I've been going to bed at 11 or 12, and Sofi gets up at 4 or 5, so no. Overall, total, yes, but that break in the middle. And then I have no energy in the mornings.

And sometimes - like now - I stress out. "If I don't get to sleep soon, I'll only get such-and-such hours of sleep!"

Last few mornings, trying to sleep through the 4 AM crying. Gave up this morning. Sofi wins again.

Which is fine, really, co-sleeping in the morning is a pleasant family feeling.

Screw it. Guess I'll get up and write a blog entry.

Sofi can't get enough cheese

One thing she likes to do lately is feed us - she'll stuff the cheese in our mouths whether we want it or not...

One Year

Haven't written in a while. Brain dump:

Sofi is one year old as of 11/27. I should go back and read through the blog archives. Her grandparents (on my side) were down for Thanksgiving and her birthday - and she seems to hate them. She cries when they hold her; she doesn't play the "giving game" with them - in fact, when she gives me something and I hand it to her grandma she'll immediately snatch it back and give it to me again. If I persist in handing the item off to grandma, she'll start to get upset. Hoping this will pass with more exposure. We'll see them again at Christmas.

She's starting to amass a small collection of toys - nothing compared to her cousin, but more than enough. She likes balls and musical instruments. (One toy, where if you put balls in receptacles it plays music, is a real winner.)

She's starting to show some signs of language - she makes the "milk" sign all the time, now - we think she thinks it means "mommy", because that's who she gets when she makes it. Started giving her cow milk yesterday when she made the sign and noooo that's not what she meant. Words I think I've heard her say include "ball", "book", "turkey", "zoo". We've also taught her how to stick out her tongue and say "ah" - recorded some video footage yesterday of her holding a car adapter like a microphone and singing "ah" into it.

Recording video is a pain, by the way. Unlike photography which is more fire-and-forget, with video you've got to download it and edit it and it's a bit much. I'll record video when she's extremely cute but that's about it. I do somewhat regret the purchase of the camcorder.

This morning, when she was trying to put a baby food lid on a yogurt container and getting a little frustrated that it wasn't working, something occurred to me. I always imagined we start out seeing the world as it really is, and as we get older we grow filters and make abstractions and turn the world into symbols. Like, when we're young, instead of seeing "table", we see this brown wooden platform-and-legs shape with a grainy texture. *The Scientist In The Crib* says this isn't the case, but it didn't really hit home until I saw Sofi trying to put the baby food lid on the yogurt container. It seems like, to her, "baby food container" and "yogurt container" are the same - so why can't she take the lid from one and put it on the other? It's like we're born with the abstractions and it's not until we're older that we start noticing refinements. Which is why at first we draw stick figures and it's not until later that we can draw people with thickness and lighting and so on.

Baby Bach

Baby Bach is like heroin. I've never seen Sofi sit so still for so long with such focus.

One word we're sure she knows the meaning of is "Kiss" - she will kiss us on command, now, although she prefers mommy. Maybe because of my beard.

Hit the zoo on Friday. Whoops - turned out it was Veteran's Day. Crowded. Funny thing about being unemployed, you don't know which days everyone else has off too. Still, after we got through the line outside, it was fine. Sofi seemed to like it, babbling happily as the day wore on.

shake

Sofi's learned to shake her head no.

A natural progression, I guess, from turning her head away when we offer her food...

daylight savings time

Remember when I said that daylight savings time was great because it helped me fit to Sofi's schedule?
Well...
Why can't it be year-round?
Sofi's waking us up at 4:30 AM now...

And the Good News Is...

I haven't forgotten how to surf!

It's been over two years. First there was some construction on my condo that made it a real pain in the ass to get my surfboard down to the car; then it was my daughter. (Daughter + Job + Surfing > Total Available Bandwidth, but Daughter + Surfing < Total Available Bandwidth.)

Only caught four waves today, and they were crappy waves at that, but I caught them, and they were mine, and you can't take that away from me.

And I'm so excited by the news that I've posted it on both my blogs! Since I think most people either read one blog (parents, wife, non-industry friends) or the other (game industry friends) I'm doubling up.

Sounds Like...

A Choking Hazard!

One nice thing about our laminate floors - I can be looking away from Sofi, reading a book or something, and identify by sound that she's somehow got her hands on a choking hazard and is playing with it. (That sounds like one of Cathy's tiny refrigerator magnets! That sounds like one of my six-sided dice!)

Walking

Sofi took a couple of shuffling steps towards mommy today.

My reaction was, "No!!!!"

She's so *cute* when she's crawling.

And if she starts walking I won't be able to call her "floor monster" anymore.

Weird how I can't wait for her to learn to talk and sign but I don't want her to ever walk. Maybe it's because I value brains more than athletics? Or maybe it's just pragmatics: if she can't walk she can't get into as much trouble? Or maybe it's all about the cuteness.

Sofi Likes Pesto

Spaghetti with pesto. She's really chowing it down right now. Mmm, basil, garlic, olive oil. Is that healthy for babies?

I've noticed a pattern lately - if I think what I'm feeding Sofi is kind of gross, (peas, pureed squash) she doesn't like it, and if what I feed her is good (pesto, applesauce, biscuits) then she does.

Which is weird, because when I was her age I didn't like the stuff I like now. Maybe I'm sending her unconscious signals.

Bedtime, Sharing

Our bedtime ritual has settled in at about 1 hour and fifteen minutes. The ritual looks something like this, and usually happens shortly after dinner time:
1. bath (we put the tub that Nick and Catherine gave us in the kitchen sink...it fits in there snugly, and that way we don't have to bend down and kill our backs washing her in the bathtub)
2. dry her off and take her into the nursery, where she nurses--hence the name--while listening to "Bedtime with the Beatles" - a bunch of Beatles hits turned into orchestral lullaby things
3. we turn the lights down about halfway through the CD - barely light enough to read
3a. she sometimes falls asleep during this step, in which case we go straight to step 5
4. I take her and rock her in the rocking chair, in the dark, while a windup Eeyore plays Braham's lullaby.
5. Into the crib: got this whole technique down, where I gradually lower her, and then use my right hand to support her head so I can pull my left hand out from under her neck. She sometimes wakes up in this step, in which case:
6. Gently hold her arms steady - otherwise she flails around and gets upset. If I hold her arms, she'll immediately relax and eventually fall asleep.

One thing we've been noticing lately is that she likes to give us things. Food, pieces of paper. Then she wants those things right back. She's practicing sharing, I guess.

Adventure

Sofi and I went off for our first solo adventure today. Mom wasn't feeling well so I took Sofi to a party in the afternoon. It was just us. She cried a little here and there, but mostly she seemed okay with the mommy-free party. We were only gone for a couple hours, but not a bad first step.

Sick

Sofi didn't used to mind being sick - snot would be running down her face and she'd be as happy as a clam.

Not anymore.

Not happy.

In other news, to distract Sofi from trying to break my keyboard, we found a spare computer keyboard and let her play with that one. It's one of her favorite toys.

New Record

Yesterday Sofi stood up for 33 seconds unassisted.

Yeah Baby

Sofi was very good on the flight back from New York. Probably because Cathy would nurse her whenever she got uppity - we rigged the blankets on the armrests and meal tray to create a kind of tent or shower curtain for modesty.
Right now she's crying, though, because she got used to sleeping with mommy and daddy, and now she's alone in her crib, and I got a spasm in my back trying to soothe her and gave up.
And I will not feel guilty about that, damn it!
Other random milestones: she learned to crawl up stairs; she learned to pull the back off the remote control and take the batteries out; she learned to push the plastic cork in on her pig toy; and she took her first drink from a sippy cup today. (Up until now she just gnawed on the end, not really getting it.)
You know, sometimes she can be trying, but most of the time I just want to gloat. Look what an awesome kid *I* have.

New York, New York

Well, Long Island anyway.
Yesterday we went to the Riverhead Aquarium: it was Sofi's first sighting of live sharks, lobsters, rays, monkeys, humuhumunukuapuaa (I think that's what they were...), emus. It was her first viewing of a piranha feeding frenzy; and mine too. She seemed to really enjoy it. She cried hardly at all, anyhow, and was always looking around interested at stuff. There was one shark tank where she grabbed the railing and didn't want to let go...I think she liked holding the railing more than looking into the tank, though.
Today she learned how to crawl up steps. She knew her mom was somewhere upstairs, and I followed her as she made her way up a whole flight.
While on vacation, we're co-sleeping again. You know, when your wife takes too much of the bed, it's no problem, you just shove her over or hit her with a pillow or whatever, but when your baby takes too much, you're screwed. Not getting a lot of sleep on this vacation.

I did it!

I fixed my enter key.
Whew.

The Fragility of Laptop Keyboards

Sofi just gave me a lesson in this. I thought it was so cute that she was playing with my laptop! (Even cuter is when she plays with the desktop, because she'll switch back and forth between mashing the keyboard and playing with the mouse. It's like she's been watching us and learning. Now why can't she learn sign language? I thought she had learned "more" once...I even posted about it...but haven't seen her reliably reproduce it since then.) The flight to New York was okay: she slept on the way up - slept for a good hour and a half, in fact - was quiet for most of the trip - and then got bored. Cathy didn't get to watch the inflight movie (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) because Sofi demanded her attention. We held her on the way down. If you're wondering why there are no line feeds in this post, it's because that's the key Sofi pulled off my laptop.